One Day at a Time
by Truly Original
Summary: On a planet doomed, one man waits for one woman. The woman he was destined for.


1 Okay, I know that I should bee working on editing and posting the next chapter of Girls and Ghouls', but my muse attacked me quite viciously late last night. It decided that the best way to start a new year of my life -as my birthday is on Christmas- is with a new story. I promise, on my honor, that I shall get to work editing my other stories to post and I will, sometime in the next couple of weeks hopefully, have an edited version of part two of G & G up. Until then however, here is my new story...

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:One Day At a Time:

September 24th

"Well?"

Konan Uchiha's voice was soft and inquiring as she walked in to find her best friend bent over his work table, sketching blueprints on his tablet for his latest technological masterpiece. Her question, however, was directed at the PAT built into the wall of his office.

PATs, or Personal Application Technologies were multi-media devises that acted as computers, telephones, videophones, televisions, or anything else that was required of it. This particular one, she knew, was hand built and while it had all of the normal applications on it, it also had built-in artificial intelligence software and controlled most of the electrical aspects of Nagato's home. Such as the pot of coffee that had started percolating in the small kitchenette in his office the moment she entered the room.

Currently it was filtering through the interplanetary marriage list for all the women in the galaxy. The list was enlarged on one of the many of the holo-screens in the large room and was being scrolled through automatically, awaiting Nagato to sense the name of his chosen and voice the command to halt the filter program.

"Nothing," came the low voice of the PAT. The voice was feminine and sensual sounding; the voice of a popular singer that had been alive over two-hundred years prior. Nagato had given PAT her voice originally because it had amused him. Now, after several attempts to get the man to change it, only to be met with absolute refusal, Konan wondered if there wasn't something deeper behind his decision.

Konan sighed in disappointment. After the bio-chemical attack on Amegakure by the- now destroyed- planet simply referred to as Sound, the female population of Ame had been decimated. The latest census dictated by the Amegakurian government had shown that only thirty percent of the women survived the attack. Now the Amegakurian race faced complete destruction.

The governments of surrounding planets had offered assistance. That assistance was in the form of the marriage list. Women how were unattached would get the chance to volunteer and marry one of th many men left on the planet. Females from the surrounding planets had jumped at the chance to marry a male from Ame. Amegakurian males were coveted by women around the Solsta galaxy, as they had the reputation of being the most attentive of all the races. They treated their chosen with love and respect and were rumored to be insatiable in bed and faithful to their women. Not to mention that members of the Amegakurian race, both male and female, were remarkably good-looking.

However, there was a reason for the males of Ame to have such a reputation that few outside of the planet were aware of. Amegakurians were born and raised knowing that there was only one perfect person that existed for each of them. One perfect person, referred to as the Chosen, who was created as the other half of a two-piece puzzle. When the two pieces finally connected together there was nothing else in the universe that could compare. They existed for each other and the two would form an irrevocable bond that couldn't be broken, even by death.

That was why the marriage list was a failure. Even though the Ame government had agreed to the list, none of the Amegakurian men would marry a woman that they were not meant for. In fact, Konan had only ever heard of a few people having found their Chosen on 'the list'. Amegakurians had an extrasensory ability that they communicated and learned through, that most others were incapable of. It was through this ability that Amegakurians sensed any type of connection to their bond-mates, even if it was just their name on a list of thousands of people. However, very few Chosen had been discovered among the thousands.

Konan walked up the steps to the kitchenette, elevated several feet from the ground floor and poured herself a cup of coffee. She leaned against the railings that separated the small kitchen area from the rest of the office and watched the man that she had been friends with since childhood. She knew, although he appeared to be wholly focused on his work, that he was paying avid attention to the list. His extrasense, she could feel, was extended like feelers hoping to sense something that led him to his chosen.

Nagato didn't say much in regards to his search, but she was well aware of his growing concern as he failed to find her. With every day that passed the chances grew that his Chosen had died on the chemical drop or that she hadn't been and that he would never find her among the billions of other females.

She quickly took a sip of her drink to hide the pained swallow that came with her thoughts. 'If he she was killed what will Nagato become?' As children Konan and Nagato had heard horrible stories of dead souls in barely living shells. Stories of vibrant, intelligent people slowly dying from the inside out because they had never become whole. Lately she had seen some of what those stories told of walking down the streets; men who lost their joy in life. After the women had died so did a lot of the men, both figuratively and literally. Obituaries had lined several pages of the new-links, as men committed suicide, not wanting to live without their Chosen.

Konan thought of Nagato becoming like the wraiths she had seen and shuddered. _"Pein," _she reached out with her thoughts, using his nickname, to the one who, as a boy, had protected her and cared for her and as a man did the same. The thought that he would never have one to lavish love on a woman the way her Chosen did her and to have it returned, made her ache for him.

Her emotions must have leaked into her thoughts because he looked up, away from his work, and focused his beautiful ringed gaze on her. His arresting, handsome face was guarded. As it always was when his thoughts were troubled and he refused to upset her. When Nagato spoke, it was aloud, obviously to keep his distress from touching her. "Stop thinking such thoughts Konan. There is still time."

She forced her lips into a smile. "Yes of course." _There's still time. _

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September 28th

Nagato Hanazawa lay still and silent, not sure what woke him. The shades were down over his windows, making it impossible to tell the hour. He extended his senses and, like fingers, they combed through every room in his home. Only when he finished his examination of his house did he roll over and glance at his clock.

Three o'clock.

That meant that he had only been sleeping for a few hours. He had slept deeply during that time, however. That, in and of itself, was unusual. Normally he had to meditate for a long while to calm his overactive mind just enough to rest.

Nagato recalled dreaming. What of, he didn't know. All he remembered was that it was strangely bright. The few other times he had slept hard enough to dream they had been in black and white. This one had been imbued with vivid color.

Shoving it into the corner of his mind as unimportant he lay there for a few moments to access whether or not he would be able to fall back to sleep. Deciding that no, the sudden activity of his mind would not allow him to sleep, he sat up and climbed out of bed.

"PAT, wake up." The vocal order had his computer literally groaning as she aroused herself from slumber.

"Really," Pat grumbled as screens illuminated around the house. "You need to see a doctor about this insomnia of yours. If you keep working my circuit boards like this you'll need to replace half of them." For all the computer's grumbling the scent of coffee filled the air as it began to percolate and the smell drifted through the vent system. As her systems ran diagnostics on the house and everything attached she commented," Eat a spinach and cheese omelet, and two slices of whole wheat toast for breakfast this morning. Your iron and calcium is low and you'll need the protein and carbohydrates to give you the energy you need to survive the lack of sleep."

If Nagato had not programmed her personally he would have rolled his eyes at the bossy A.I. Instead he pulled on a pair of sweats, headed in the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee. Then he carried the hot beverage into his office before glancing at his profits and cast a weather eye at his stocks as they popped up on individual holo-screens. As was usual, his stock prices were soaring and his profit margin increased ten percent since last quarter.

His lips twitched in satisfaction as he noted that his competition- if they could be called that- had a bad week after announcing the release of the X44, a knock off version of his office A.I. software. Their stocks had plummeted virtually overnight and one of the reviewers had said that the X44 software was like an insect crawling in the shadow of the large boot about to stomp on it. The large boot being the Akatsuki Corporation's own product, that had come out more than six months before the X44; with consistent customer reports of the product's superiority

All in all his overnights were excellent and EZSoft was whimpering in a puddle of their own failure. Few things pleased him more than triumphing over those who sought to steal his work and utterly embarrass themselves when they fail to make even an adequate replication. The more the company tried to cash in on his ideas the less trust the customers would place in EZSoft.

He sighed and turned to his tablet and exploded the image on it into a 6 dimension hologram. He often did this with his works in progress because it was easier to view complications and then take apart the products and decide how to best fix it. Nagato scowled and ordered Pat to take away the product's shell so he could view its interior.

He had been working on this particular technology for three years. Nagato used to see to it, in-between working on his other products. Now, however, he was running out of time, in-spite of what he told Konan, and his people were slowly dying every day. Soon, with only a few children to continue on with their culture, his people would die out.

It was his hope that with this new technology it would be easier for his people to find their Chosen. There were over twenty inhabited planets in this galaxy alone and it was too much to hope to find her on the list. For every one woman in the Solsta galaxy that volunteered to be bonded a complete stranger, there were several million who didn't. The chances that there would be even one Chosen amongst the volunteers was entirely too low.

For Amegakurians, the bond between Chosen was everything. It was the building block underneath their culture. Their laws were built around this bond. In Amegakurian society there were evils that just did not exist, such as rape. No Amegakurian thought of sex outside of their bonding. While they may have fantasized as hormonal teenagers, their fantasies always revolved around their, now elusive, bond-mates. There was simply nothing that could compare to the connection formed between two and anything outside of it was lackluster and tedious.

It was also this partnership that limited most crime as well, for the punishment for treating another's Chosen with malice was severe. That very standard was the reason that Sound had been eliminated. Their crime of the murder of millions of Chosen deserved a similar punishment and they had received it swiftly.

Children of bonded couples were raised in such an environment and learned to follow in their parent's foot steps and carried on with the traditions of the past. No Amegakurian male, unlike the males of other peoples, would assist in the creation of a child outside of the bond. Such an idea was repulsive to them. Unfortunately, the lack of completed bonds segued into the lack of children to carry on with their way of life and the lack of children into even more uncompleted bonds. Soon there would be none left.

That was why Nagato had been working diligently to complete this technology. A technology designed to amplify their extrasensory abilities and increase the odds of detecting their Chosen outside of Ame and the Marriage List.

Finishing this technology, however, was proving difficult. There was something that he was missing, some aspect that he had yet to grasp and apply it to his technologies. That something, he was sure, he would discover when he located his own Chosen. For all of his extrasensory capabilities it was impossible to transfer knowledge of the bond's finer intricacies from one person to another. Although it had been attempted by his own parents to explain when he hit manhood, it was obvious that the only way to obtain that intangible knowledge was to experience it for him.

'If only,' Nagato thought as he ran a hand though his wild hair. In spite of what he had informed Konan just yesterday, the search was draining him. More and more the separation from his Chosen was eating away at his resolve. His desire to complete his work was decreasing everyday and though he would never admit it, the selfish desire to just stop existing was becoming more appealing everyday. It was as if the gaping hole in his soul was slowly filling with anguish and hopelessness. Now that he was experiencing it, he understood the stories of his childhood.

Pein refused to speak of it; even to his closest companion. Konan thought about his missing bond-mate, already, more than he would like. He could tell by the tinge of sadness that colored her thoughts and the look of worry she cast on him. Nagato could feel her pain, on his behalf, even if she tried to hide it.

Grey eyes narrowed as he shot a decidedly dark look at his design. If only he could figure out the missing piece he could find his Chosen but, he suspected, that in order to find her he might need a working prototype. The bitter irony of his situation didn't escape him. To solve his design problem he needed the aid of said design to help him find the one who could help him solve the design issue, among many other things. It was aggravating, to say the least.

He quelled a tired sigh and with an agitated downward stroke of his hand along the touch sensitive tablet screen he minimized the project. He knew that, barring a miracle, there was nothing he could do with it today. Nagato had never been one for exercises in futility. Instead he unlocked a safe-box and pulled the prototype for his latest handheld PAT. It was the size of a large candy bar with a series of built in USB and memory-disk ports. When it was turned on a motion-sensored, holographic screen appeared that was the size of a large hardback novel. The flat pea-sized pads that the users slid over their fingertips activated the sensors; enabling them to trigger all of their applications with just a few light touches of their fingers against the holographic screen. Just a few more adjustments and the T-PAT (Transportable, Personal, Application, Technology) would be just as sensitive as the home versions and came with over fifty terabytes of memory and a thirty hour battery pack that was the size of a stick of gum. Even as Nagato worked on it here, the creative department in his company was coming up with a variety of accessories for it. He estimated that the final product would be out on market within a year.

The titan-orange haired man had become so engrossed in the T-PAT that he almost didn't notice the gentle rub against his mind. Almost. He paused briefly in surprise before whirling around in his seat and looked at one of the screens; _the_ screen that he had been monitoring for the better part of two years. His senses extended further and waited. Sure enough, even though it was fading, there was something stroking sensually against his mind. "PAT, halt the search program and scroll back slowly."

The A.I. obeyed and as she scrolled back the feeling grew stronger, more intense, against his senses. Turning from a teasing caress into a full on grope.

"There!" Nagato stood and walked over to the screen and took over manual control and clicked lightly on the name that called to him. As the profile opened up his lips turned up into his first genuine smile in months. 'Miracle indeed.'

His voice was soft as he spoke. "Hello, Sakura Haruno."

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October 6th

It had been over a week since he had finally located his bonding-partner. It had been a tedious process, contacting the woman through government channels. At last though, everyone involved had come to an understanding that soon Sakura Haruno would leave Konohagakure to live on Amegakure and join her life with Nagato (Pein) Hanazawa as his wife. Now that he had reached an agreement with Sakura he needed to retrieve her personal information so that they could go about getting her Ame. Unluckily, that involved driving down to the nearest government building to speak to someone and verify all of his information in order to get all of _her_ information.

The office they had been directed to was barely large enough to fit the small, paper covered desk and the three splitting vinyl chairs. Walls the color of snot were covered with the credentials of the man in front of them. The uncomfortable chairs felt like steel encased in cracking Tupperware that kept pinching them every time they moved.

Nagato barely listened to the government official as he went over the process of getting his Chosen planetside and equipped with an Amegakurian citizenship. He had read up on the process the day he had located his bond-mate. It would take her roughly three months to fly to Ame. Then another week in a closely monitored quarantine to get her slowly adjusted to the planet's atmosphere and to make sure that she hadn't brought foreign illnesses with her. He was not a patient man and knowing the time he had to wait was frustrating. He wanted her here, now.

The wait made him especially short tempered and his patience was growing thin with the male sitting across from him. His speech was incredibly pontifical for a man stuck in a room that was no better than the cubicles they had passed by when heading to his office.

Sometime during the official's spiel Nagato had gotten distracted by his own thoughts; his attention however abruptly snapped back to attention when the man mentioned something that he hadn't read. Something about the government paying for a third class ticket for the Chosen that were off planet. "I'm sorry; can you repeat that?"

Konan, who had come to keep him company, cast a knowing look in his direction. She knew the moment the man finally said something that required his attention. Something that he was not pleased with.

"Amegakure is willing to pay the price of the spacecraft ticket, including sustenance. She will, most likely, be sharing a bunk-room with another passenger. If she wishes to partake of the entertainment, like the casinos or the shops, she will have to pay for that on her own."

"Third class," he intoned flatly.

"Yes. As much as Amegakure would love to pay for everyone to ride in high style," came the supercilious reply," I'm afraid that we just don't have the funds for it."

"I see. It will not be necessary for the government to use my tax-credits to pay for Sakura's fare," Nagato bit off, disgusted. "I will cover the cost of everything."

The official stared at him from behind a pair of spectacles that were quite unflattering. "I don't think that you realize the price of a single ticket for interplanetary travel," he said condescendingly, causing Nagato's eyes to narrow dangerously. "One ticket from Sunagakure (referring to the desert planet in the same orbit as Ame) is twenty-three-thousand credits. Your chosen lives In Konohagakure; which is more than ten times that distance."

Konan hid her amusement at his ignorance. Obviously he wasn't aware of whom he was speaking to.

"I am well aware the price," Nagato spoke coldly, not appreciating the pompous man's tone. His patience had reached its end. Displeasure was radiating off of him like a icy wind. "I have traveled the distance four times in my lifetime. I will not have my Chosen spending three months in a closet with someone she is not familiar with. I will pay for her travel costs as was my intention from the start. The only thing I came here for is Sakura's information so I can wire it to her account and contact her to make arrangements."

The official spluttered a bit before, in the face of his disapproval, acted as everyone did and bent to Nagato's indomitable will. Thirty minutes later they walked out of the building with a memory disk full of Sakura's, more sensitive, information. As Nagato started his vehicle and pulled out of the parking lot Konan removed the tiny disk from its hard plastic casing and slid it into the PAT he had built into the dashboard. As information popped up on the little screen, she read it out loud to him.

"Sakura Haruno was a born and raised Konoite, With the death of her mother, when she was two, she was sent to live with her only two living relatives, her Aunt Tsunade Haruno and her cousin Shizune. Tsunade was renowned all over Konohagakure as the best Medic in the galaxy and she raised the two children in her care to follow in her footsteps. At fifteen she enlisted into the military as a soldier/medic. Apparently, they are allowed to join young on Konoha. Oh! She was awarded the Medal of Honor for brave and heroic actions in battle and a Purple Heart, along with a few that I have never heard of. She is now 21 and was still in the military when she volunteered."

"She's young," Nagato murmured.

Konan glanced at him, sensing his concern. They were both in their early thirties and though Amegakurians aged slowly, he still had a good ten years on the woman. "In age, but if she joined up at fifteen she would have been enlisted during the Leaf/Mist war. She is probably has a wealth of experience that makes up for her age."

He gave a noncommittal hum and she took that as her cue to continue. She surfed through different folders until she located what she was looking for. "She gave both her physical and electronic addresses as well as a telephone number. It doesn't say anything about having a videophone, Maybe she has and old PAT?"

"Not for long."

Konan knew the truth of that. She knew from personal experience that Amegakurian men took excellent care of their women. Just yesterday she had mentioned that her car was emitting funny sounds and Itachi had it picked up by an overnight mechanic and had it fixed while she slept. It was returned before she had woken up today. How much more would Nagato, who demanded only the best of everything for those in his care be for his woman now that he had one to care for. She smiled.

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(A/N)

So, you may have noticed that, even though the name is One Day at a Time, there are several days missing in between each written day. Obviously that is to keep the story fast paced; if I wrote out something for every day these chapters would be a lot longer.

Please review!


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